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Evidence Obtained Through Violation of Article 3 ECHR
In what must have been one of its the most difficult cases, the European Court yesterday ruled in Gäfgen v. Germany. Yesterday’s judgment is the apex of long and highly publicised judicial proceedings. In 2003, the applicant, Magnus Gäfgen, was sentenced to…
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New ECHR Articles EHRLR
The newest issue of the European Human Rights Law Review (2008-3) has just appeared, as fellow blog International Law Reporter reports. These are the featured articles: – Basak Çali, The Purposes of the European Human Rights System: One or Many?– Keir Starmer,…
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Official Case Law Overviews
With the huge amount of judgments and decisions flowing from Strasbourg, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep a good overview of the Court’s case law. Strasbourg itself offers several possibilities to alleviate any Court watcher’s burden. One important way are the Court’s…
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Crossing the Line
This picture shows the Greek-Cypriot Solomon Solomou who tried, in the summer of 1996, to climb a flagpole (with a Turkish flag on it) just across the ceasefire line in Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus. He was killed by five bullets as he climbed…
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Grand Chamber Judgment Maslov v. Austria
Yesterday, the Grand Chamber issued its judgment in the Maslov case on exclusion orders. I am very grateful that Maarten den Heijer, my former colleague from Leiden and an expert on migration law and human rights, was so kind to write a…
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New Article on Interim Measures
The newest issue of the European Constitutional Law Review (vol. 4, issue 1, 2008, pp. 41-63) contains an article by colleagues from Utrecht and Ghent universities on interim measures: Apart from being a case note on the judgment in Olaechea Cahuas v.…
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On the Record
Since George Orwell wrote his famous novel on the dangers of an all-controlling Big Brother in the 1940s the possibilities to record human behavior have greatly increased. The challenges to the right to privacy are obvious, but audio or videotaping behavior can…
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Judgment on Suicide in the Army
On Tuesday 17 June the Court found a violation of the right to life in a case involving suicide: Abdullah Yilmaz v. Turkey. The case concerned a 20-year-old who committed suicide during the performance of his compulsory military service. The immediate trigger…
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Television judgment
Yesterday, the Court unanimously found a violation of Article 10 ECHR (freedom of expression) in an Armenian media case: Meltex Ltd & Mesrop Movsesyan v. Armenia. The case concerned the sevenfold refusal of the Armenian authorities to grant a broadcasting license to…
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Dealing with Conflicts of Rights
Dealing with conflicting fundamental rights is one of the great challenges of any constitutional court and the European Court is no exception. A recent paper offers an intriguing combination of the academic and the insider’s perspective. In ‘Rights in Conflict: the European…